U.S. Senator Doug Jones, D-Alabama, on Friday asked President Donald Trump to appoint members to a board meant to review and make public civil rights cold case files. 

Jones and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, drafted the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018, which Trump signed into law January 2019, but since then the President has not appointed any board members. 

Congress later appropriated $1 million requested by the White House to implement the act, yet there’s been no work done, Jones said in a letter to the President. 

“When you signed the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018 on January 8, 2019, you helped this country take an important step towards finding truth and reconciliation for families and communities still struggling with the pain of unsolved civil rights crimes,” Jones wrote to the President. “As our country is once again grappling with important questions related to civil rights, I urge you to appoint the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board as expeditiously as possible and fulfill the promise of this important legislation.”

Jones prosecuted two of the former Klansmen responsible for the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four black girls, and in 2007 he  testified to the House Judiciary Committee supporting the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act that set the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate civil rights cold cases.

Read the full letter below: 

June 12, 2020

President Donald J. Trump

The White House

Office of the President

1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20500

 Dear President Trump,

When you signed the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018 (“the Act”) on January 8, 2019, you helped this country take an important step towards finding truth and reconciliation for families and communities still struggling with the pain of unsolved civil rights crimes. As you will recall, the Act requires government offices to submit files and records about civil rights cold cases to the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”). The legislation also establishes a Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board to facilitate the review, transmission to NARA, and public disclosure of the records related to these civil rights cold cases. The Act gives you the authority to appoint the members of the Review Board and provides that the appointments shall be made within 60 days of enactment. 

It is my understanding that the White House has received recommendations for the Review Board, as provided by the Act, but as of the date of this letter, no Board members have been appointed and no work has begun to fulfill the purposes of the Act. Although Congress appropriated $1 million in the FY20 budget for the work of the Board, we are nearing the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, and I am concerned that those funds will go unused if the Board is not put in place soon.

In your January 8, 2019 signing statement, you said, “the Administration considers civil rights cold cases to be a matter of public importance,” and you encouraged Congress to appropriate funds to implement the goals of the Act, which your statement fully supported. As our country is once again grappling with important questions related to civil rights, I urge you to appoint the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board as expeditiously as possible and fulfill the promise of this important legislation.

If I or my staff can be of any assistance in this regard, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

 Doug Jones

United States Senator

Cc: Senator Ted Cruz, original cosponsor of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018

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SEC schools began voluntary strength and conditioning training on Monday for the 2020 college football season after months of no football activities due to the coronavirus global pandemic.

Spring football practices for both college and high school teams in Alabama were canceled. The players have been brought back to their campuses and training has just begun but already multiple players for both the University of Alabama and Auburn University have tested positive for the virus.

Five Alabama Crimson Tide football players tested positive in the first round of testing on Friday, June 5. On Thursday three more Crimson Tide players tested positive for the virus in the second round of testing bringing the total number of players in quarantine to eight, according to Sports Illustrated.

At Auburn, three of the football players have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to WSFA. None of the players’ names have been released to protect their privacy.

All of the athletes are reportedly asymptomatic and are showing no signs of being infected, highlighting the difficulty of keeping the coronavirus out of the locker rooms. All the Alabama athletes have reportedly been placed in self-isolation in a dorm away from the rest of the team.

“The health and safety of our student-athletes is a top priority,” Alabama Interim Vice President for Strategic Communications Ryan Bradley said in a release last week. “Resources and protocols are in place to ensure they receive the best medical care when returning to campus. Due to privacy laws we cannot share information specific to the health of our student-athletes.”

Both schools are optimistic that they will be able to play football this year and are pushing ahead with plans to play a full twelve game season with fans in the stands.

Meanwhile, the novel strain of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, is running rampant in the state of Alabama. At least 848 Alabamians tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, more in a single day than at any time in this crisis. At least 640 Alabamians are in the hospital this week with COVID-19, more than at any time in the crisis. At least Alabamians died from COVID-19 on Thursday, bringing the state’s death toll to 750.

Alabama began opening its economy on May 1. That combined with Memorial Day weekend vacations is believed to have led to a surge of cases in Alabama. It’s possible that mass protests over the killing of George Floyd could contribute to an even greater increase.

In March, the state began a forced economic shutdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus. A recent report claims that the nationwide closing of the economy may have saved as many as 600,000 lives, but the move resulted in enormous economic casualties. April unemployment soared to 14.7 percent and actual joblessness climbed to 23 percent, both numbers not seen by anyone since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The shutdown was also enormously unpopular with Alabamians. Administration officials have told the Alabama Political Reporter that a second economic shutdown is unlikely.

Gov. Kay Ivey lifted her shelter in place order at the end of April, but the state remains under a safer-at-home order. The governor is asking Alabamians to stay at home whenever possible and to wear masks and social distance whenever they have to go out. Many Alabamians have not heeded these warnings, contributing to the worsening situation that the state is experiencing.

The high school football season begins on the week of August 21 and the college football season begins in early September with both beginning fall football camps on the first of August. Both seasons could be in jeopardy if Alabamians continue to throw caution to the wind and carry on without any regards for their own safety.

It could become impossible for athletes to safely return to their locker rooms. It is impossible for players to socially distance themselves on a football field.

If the virus continues to surge, it is unclear whether universities will be able to allow stadiums to fill and fans to spend football game weekends tailgating. Football weekends have an enormous economic impact on both Tuscaloosa and the city of Auburn, but there is not a lot of social distancing on a normal game day.

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Our ancestors domesticated the wild jungle fowl, the ancestor of the modern chicken, sometime before 2,000 B.C. By 450 B.C. cockfighting was a major sport in ancient Rome. In Alabama, cockfighting remains a major sport even though it was outlawed here as early as 1896.

On Thursday, Animal Wellness Action and the Animal Wellness Foundation held a press conference to announce that they have asked U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town to investigate possible illegal cockfighting after their recent investigation produced evidence that the illegal activity is not only still practiced in Alabama, but that Alabama gamebird breeds are trafficking game birds to Guam, a U.S. Territory.

The investigation by AWA and AWF that revealed that several Alabamians are among the top shippers of fighting birds to Guam.

The AWA and AWF named: Jerry Adkins of Slick Lizard Farms; Royce Flores, and the late Jason Campbell, all of Nauvoo as being top breeders of gamebirds and of shipping gamecocks to Guam. They allege that Adkins and Flores breed and train birds and then ship them around the world for the purpose of cockfighting.

The animal welfare groups told reporters that these individuals, according to shipping records, packed birds in boxes and sent them through the U.S. Postal Service to Guam for later use, allegedly, in fights. AWA and AWF claim to have detailed information on a host of other major cockfighting operations in Alabama, with thousands of birds raised for fighting and shipped to Mexico, the Philippines, and other far-flung jurisdictions. Many of the cockfighting enthusiasts, whose operations dot many parts of the state, appear to be affiliated with the Alabama Gamefowl Breeders Association.

The AWA says that Alabama is “the cockfighting capital of the Southeast.” Filipino TV recently visited a number of Alabama farms where they interviewed breeders and showed how the animals are raised. Cockfighting is both very legal and very popular in the Philippines. Many of the birds were allegedly bred in Alabama.

Possessing and shipping birds for cockfighting have been banned under federal law. since 2002 and has been a felony since 2007, when President George W. Bush (R) signed the enhanced penalty provisions into law and also criminalized the sale of cockfighting implements.

“It is a federal felony to buy, sell, deliver or possess any bird with the intent to engage the bird in a cockfight, and that’s clearly what we’re seeing,” said Marty Irby, executive director of Animal Wellness Action and a native of Mobile. “Alabama has become a launching point for global trafficking of fighting animals, and it’s time for authorities to crack down on this criminal conduct.”

Through public records requests to the Guam Department of Agriculture, AWF and AWA obtained nearly 2,500 pages of avian shipping records dated November 2016 to September 2019. These records detail approximately 750 shipments of birds by 71 individuals from more than a dozen states to Guam.

Alabama cockfighters had the fifth highest total number of shipments to Guam. Mr. Flores was the top shipper to Guam from Alabama and the sixth biggest shipper in the U.S., selling more than 400 birds to Guam during the three years.

The shipping records show that the nearly 8,800 birds were sold and shipped as “brood fowl.” The AWA and AWF however claim that Guam does not have a significant animal agriculture industry or a show-bird circuit. Additionally, the ratio of roosters to hens in these shipments was nearly 10 to 1 with some shipments being over 100 to 1. Cockfighters fight the roosters. Hens, which are more social and less violent than their brothers, aren’t used for fighting. Chickens also are not monogamous so one rooster can service two dozen hens easily; thus a normal chicken breeder is going to normally prefer hens 20:1 and someone raising chickens for eggs may purchase only pullets (juvenile hens).

“It’s nonsensical to think of any animal agriculture enterprise requiring more males than females,” Irby said. “Standard breeding protocols would have the ratio of male to female birds to be inverted, but male birds are used in cockfighting. Any reasonable person would conclude that these shipments was primarily for the cockfighting industry, which is robust on the island.”

The AWA and AWF claims that their investigation shows the Alabama operators to be running their illegal operations in full view of law enforcement and the public.

Adkins claimed in videos produced by the Philippines-based cockfighting broadcaster BNTV in April 2020 that he ships 6,000 birds a year from his Nauvoo farm to destinations for fighting purposes, including 700 birds to a single buyer in Mexico.

“Selling 6,000 birds for the fighting trade would likely yield $1 million to $3 million in gross sales,” Irby claimed.

Federal authorities have busted major dogfighting operations in the state, but the state law against cockfighting is so weak it’s unusable. In 2016, the FBI broke up a fighting operation in Mobile County, but very modest penalties were imposed in the case at the recommendation of the Department of Justice, which was led at the time by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. When he served as a U.S. Senator, Sessions opposed efforts to make it a crime to attend a dogfight or cockfight or to bring a child to such a spectacle (Roll Call Vote # 154).

Jonathan Buttram, president of the Alabama Contract Poultry Growers’ Association has previously expressed concerns about cockfighters spreading avian influenza.

“Cockfighters ship birds very long distances, and engage in very intimate contact with the birds, sometimes sucking fluids from the air passages of the birds in order to keep an injured bird fighting,” noted Buttram. “The shipments and the fighting birds would allow an avian disease to spread far and wide very fast and potentially to spread to humans. This kind of twisted entertainment does not warrant the disease risks.”

The chicken breeds used in cockfighting are highly specialized. The chicken bloodlines used in modern commercial laying chickens (normally White Leghorns) and broiler chickens (normally a line combining genetics from White Rocks with Broadbreasted Cornishs) are useless in cockfighting.

Wayne Pacelle, president of AWA, called on Alabama state legislators to upgrade the state law against cockfighting, in order to better align that law with the state’s tough anti-dogfighting law and the strong federal anti-animal fighting statute.

“While dogfighting is a felony, cockfighting warrants less in the way of penalties than a parking ticket,” Pacelle noted. “The law imposes no jail time for perpetrators, a minimum fine of $20, and a maximum fine of $50. The law has not been upgraded since it was enacted in 1896.”

“They’re everywhere now,” Buttram said of the Alabama cockfighting farms, “When they have these derbys there’s drugs, prostitution, and betting going on. Its unbelievable all that’s going on.”

Buttram said that our food biosecurity is at risk here due to the threat of avian influenza and puts Alabama’s multi $billion poultry industry potentially at stake.

“If AI gets in here it would be devastating,” Buttram said. “In my area here it is chicken house after chicken house there would be millions of dead birds and if it mutates into humans there could be millions of dead humans also.”

The groups want a federal animal fighting unit created to investigate cockfighting and dog fighting fulltime.

Buttram warned that cockfighting is, “A very good way for AI to come into the United States,”

Animal Wellness Action (Action) is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(4) organization with a mission of helping animals by promoting legal standards forbidding cruelty.

The Animal Wellness Foundation (Foundation) is a Los Angeles-based private charitable organization with a mission of helping animals by making veterinary care available to everyone with a pet, regardless of economic ability.

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Wednesday, former U.S. Senator and current Senate candidate Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) said that actions taken against the Church of the Highlands “Represent an attack on both religious liberty and freedom of speech.”

“The actions taken by the Birmingham Housing Authority and the Birmingham Board of Education against the Church of the Highlands represent an attack on both religious liberty and freedom of speech,” Sen. Sessions said in a statement. “This cannot happen in America, and certainly should never happen in Alabama. Birmingham will not become Berkeley. “

Pastor Chris Hodges was criticized by some in the social justice and Black Lives Matter community for some of the conservative posts that he liked on social media. Due to those “politically incorrect” sentiments the Birmingham Board of Education voted on Tuesday night to end its leases with the Church of the Highlands. This followed similar actions by the Birmingham Housing Authority. The church paid an average of $12,000 a month each to rent Parker and Woodlawn High Schools for Sunday worship services. This agreement pays the city schools a total of $288,000 per year.

Hodges has deleted his social media accounts.

Sessions condemned the actions and is urging Birmingham to reverse their decisions.

“The First Amendment guarantees to every American the right to freely express their religious beliefs,” Sessions said. “Too often, this right has been ignored. This grave error must end. There’s also a very real free speech issue here. The withholding of public facilities and the refusal to allow a church to minister as a result of a social media “like” implicates freedom of speech in a profound way. It is intolerable for a government agency to deny access and discriminate against a faith-based organization, based on a political or religious disagreement. This is a dangerous trend we’re seeing today. It is the vicious and ugly side of political correctness. If this intimidation in the name of “tolerance” by the Birmingham government is allowed to stand, don’t be surprised if politically correct officials begin trying to condition government contracts, approvals, and permits on whether the applicant has ever “liked” a social media post that suggests support for President Trump or conservative causes.”

“Protecting religious liberty and freedom of expression and stopping the abuses of political correctness will be a top priority of mine when I return to the Senate,” Sessions stated. “Government resources cannot be used as a hammer to suppress personal viewpoints, but that is what is happening here: the Birmingham Board of Education and the Birmingham Housing Authority are using government power to coerce people into specific viewpoints. They are seeking to bludgeon faithful and service-oriented citizens to adopt certain viewpoints on issues, and demanding that Alabamians bow to politically correct viewpoints before they can serve the public or have access to public facilities. At its base, this action is outrageous, and amounts to a rejection of the American ideal of individual freedom. It must not stand.“

“The Housing Authority is an extension of the Mayor, and it is Mayor Woodfin’s responsibility to call for a reversal of the Authority’s outrageous action, and this he must do now,” Sessions stated. “The members of the Board of Education should likewise immediately reverse their blatantly anti-religious decision to terminate lease agreements with the Church of the Highlands. Make no mistake, the people of Birmingham and Alabama will not accept apparatchiks at the Housing Authority and officials at the Board of Education bludgeoning admirable citizens because of political differences. Alabamians will not be told what to do or how to think.”

Birmingham has an elected school board that does not answer to the Mayor and City Council.

Sessions said that the actions against the Church of the Highland reveal, “That the Housing Board, the Mayor, and even the government of Birmingham share the radically liberal and anti-religious and anti-free speech policies of places like Berkeley and Portland. We can never allow the government to dictate what American citizens say or believe. These actions, at a most fundamental level, are un-American.”

Sessions is running for the Republican primary runoff on July 14 against former Auburn head football Coach Tommy Tuberville. The winner will face incumbent Sen. Doug Jones (D-Alabama) in the general election on November 3.

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